


you decide (but no one is alone)

by constanted



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Found Family, Gen, Mentions of other characters obvi!, Raven's Roost, blatant disregard for canon, do people even say jossed anymore, like... super mega jossed lol, whatever im still satisfied with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10119599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constanted/pseuds/constanted
Summary: They kick him out because he stole a copy of Fantasy Fight Club, which is bullshit, because that was a totally Fantasy Tyler Durden move on his part.(Or: A young Taako is stranded in a small town, and some residents try and help him out, which he is not super into, conceptually.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> fuck dnd canon fuck elf aging and fuck episode 57  
> (i wrote 75% of this before the episode and before i remembered that elves age differently, but i finished it anyways. this au is set in an au.)
> 
> enjoy my garbage! i love you!

They kick him out because he stole a copy of Fantasy Fight Club, which is bullshit, because that was a totally Fantasy Tyler Durden move on his part. And he’s got a little bit of money, not much, but enough to maybe scam a wagon driver into taking him to the next town over, but he’s not sure if there are any actual wagon drivers here. And, the town’s residents seemed _excited_ by the caravan’s appearance, so it’s clearly not a common thing. 

In short, he’s fucked.

He’s found a shop he can probably camp out in for the night if he doesn’t get caught, and they have cooking supplies he can steal so he has something to show whichever caravan he joins next. So, best case scenario, everything’s not completely fucked.

As it turns out, it’s not best case scenario. Two _kids_ —human and his age, probably--catch him. They’re bundled up for the cold. One of them has a bunch of lumber swung over his back, and the other one is lugging a bag of rocks over hers.

“Who are you?” says the lumber boy.  
“How did you get in our shop?” asks rock girl, at the same time. 

He doesn’t say anything, tries to magic himself invisible, which doesn’t quite work, because rock girl grabs his shoulders and and lumber boy asks him “What are you doing here? You’re not in trouble—“  
“Like, we’re not cops, or anything.”  
“We just don’t know you, and we work here? So it’s worrying.”  
“I’m not stealing,” he says, and sounds unconvincing.  
“Did you work on the food caravan? Cuz I think you gave me some of your cake,” says lumber boy, who takes off his scarf and hangs his coat on a hook on the shop’s wall. He places the lumber in a pile, and walks up to join his friend, “They left last night.”  
“They kicked me out,” he says, “I didn’t—I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”  
“Oh Gods,” says rock girl, “That’s so messed up.”  
“You must be freezing!” says the boy, “We don’t keep the fires up at night, I’m so sorry—I’m gonna make some cocoa.” 

And he runs off, runs up the stairs.

The girl sits down, and she’s quiet for a few minutes, until she says, “I’m Julia,” softly. She pulls her knit hat off her head, releasing a wild head of hair, kept short.  
“Taako,” he says, voice cracking a little bit.  
“This is my dad’s shop,” she says, “He takes in stray kids all the time. How old are you?”  
“Seventeen,” he says, “Not a kid.”  
“You’re a year older than me and Magnus,” she says, “Uh, that’s my friend. Coworker. We’re kids, so you are too, I think.”  
“Elves are different, kid.”  
“Not really, dude.” 

The boy comes rushing down, his long hair tied up in a bun and with three mugs in his hands, trying to balance them with a great amount of caution. He looks like he’s not very careful, in general, but he cares about this shit for some reason.

“Take it,” he says, and bends over so Taako can grab a mug. He obliges, out of pity, he thinks, more than anything.

The drink is not bad.

“Magnus,” says the boy, “You?”  
“I just told her. It’s Taako.”  
“Nice.”  
“You live here?”  
“Nah, I got parents nearby, I just spend mosta my time here. Your parents on the caravan that ditched you?”  
“Nah,” he says, “They’re dead."  
“Oh,” says Magnus, and he offers a hug, which Taako declines.  
“It was a long time ago.”  
“Mags,” says Julia, “We have class in thirty. You skipping?”  
“I—I wasn’t gonna, but what with this guy and all—“  
“You’ve been sick lately anyway. Rest up, bud.”  
“Yeah, man.”  
“Good luck explaining this fucker to my dad.”  
“Yeah,” he laughs.

And Magnus and Julia swap places, give each other a hug on the way. Taako cringes at the closeness of it all. Julia throws her hat back on, grabs a bag off the hook on the wall, and strolls out. 

“So,” says Magnus, awkwardly, which is probably the only way he can speak, “You cook?”  
“Yeah,” he says, and that’s something he can talk about.  
“Nice! I always wanted to learn how, uh, I had to cook a lot for my mom when I was a kid but I can’t make anything good, y’know, only boring stuff. That cake you baked for the market people? It was so _good,_ where do you even get those ingredients?”  
“Transmutation magic,” he says, “I taught myself some food transmutation spells and it helps with, uh, ripeness, missing ingredients, all that.”  
“You _taught yourself?_ Jules has to go to a fancy tutor once a week for her magic lessons.”  
“Yeah, uh, didn’t have money or time for that bullshit. If you’re sneaky enough, you can pretty much learn anything.”  
“Nice.”  
“You do magic, Magno?”  
“Don’t have the focus or the time or money for that bullshit. I’m more brawn anyways.” 

And that’s true, Magnus is a big lug of a boy, the type who could probably throw Taako fucking javelin-style across the shop.

“Ooh, the adventuring type,” teases Taako.  
“I just wanna be a carpenter, actually. Jules wants to adventure though, I’d probably go with her.”  
“You build shit?”  
“Yeah, uh, Mr. Waxmen is actually a blacksmith, I make all the wooden stuff.”  
“Shit, dude,” says Taako, because he’s actually impressed by that. 

Magnus is nice, decides Taako, too nice. He’s gotta have some kinda motive behind this.

And then, Julia’s father enters from the staircase, says, “Burnsides, you’re here early.”  
“Stayed the night, sir, got some new wood this morning for you. Jules got some new stones with me. She just left for school.”  
“Of course. You feelin’ rough, still?”  
“Yessir, but I probably coulda made it to school today, It’s just, uh, you’ve picked up another stray and I was worried about him.” 

The man, who introduces himself as Steven Waxmen, is gruff-looking, a large, older man with scars all over his face. 

“Where’d he come from?”  
“Caravans ditched him.”  
“He stay here overnight?”  
“Broke in cuz he needed warmth. Didn’t get much. Jules and I made him cocoa, but that’s pretty clearly not a super permanent solution?”  
“I’m not that cold,” Taako lies.  
“Oh fuck off, you’re shivering,” says Mangus, in a softer tone, and then he shifts back to, “Mr. Waxmen, I can go home this week if you let Taako use the, uh, use the loft—“  
“You don’t have to go home to let him stay, Burnsides. There’s a spare mattress Jules keeps in her closet, you know that, right?”  
“No,” says Magnus.  
“I—I was gonna call for a wagon or something,” says Taako.  
“I’m the only good driver in Raven’s Roost” says Magnus, clearly bragging, “And the wagon’s broken down. My dad’s okay too, but, uh, it’s his wagon, and he broke it. We’re a wagoning family.” 

Well, fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I can cook,” he says, to Magnus, “If that sweetens the pot at all. While you fix up your wagon.”  
“It most certainly does,” says Waxmen, “But it’s not needed. Magnus, are you up for building today?”  
“Obviously,” says Magnus.  
“I worry.”  
“You don’t need to.”

And Magnus gets up and he builds, the noise of the saws grating on Taako. he’s told that there’s a fireplace upstairs, and he rushes up there, avoiding speaking. He really, really doesn’t trust these people.

He falls asleep on a shoddy couch by the fire. He doesn’t need to sleep, but he enjoys it, and today, he feels like it.

He’s woken up with a blanket on top of him and a few tiny wooden dogs on the table next to him. Magnus is on a chair across from him, fucking whittling more dogs, and he can hear Julia chatting across the room. He tries to figure out how long he’s been out, when Magnus says, like he’s a mind reader (he puts that on his suspicions list), “Nine hours.”  
“Shit,” says Taako.  
“Arnie Spareshoe is spreading shit about you,” says Julia to Magnus.  
Magnus sighs, “Isn’t he always?”  
“The fuck kinda name is Arnie Spareshoe?” asks Taako.  
“A shitty one.”  
“It’s better that he goes after me than anybody else! I can handle it,” says Magnus.  
“He says he’s gonna kick your ass when you get back.”  
“Yeah, and I’m way stronger than he is.”  
“I just— I worry, Maggie.”  
“You don’t need to!”

And eventually, it’s time for dinner, which is decently flavorful chicken, which is hard to find from humans, and some vegetables. It’s fine. He offers to cook tomorrow.

And then, Magnus is lugging a mattress up a tiny ladder into a loft, where there’s another mattress on the ground, and places the new mattress about a foot away from the other one. There’s a messenger bag in the corner of the loft, a small pile of clothes, a notebook, an axe, five bottles of cheap nail polish from the cosmetics seller from the caravans, and a knife. 

“That’s the stuff corner,” says Magnus, “You put your stuff in it.”  
“Okay,” says Taako, and he puts his bag by the axe.  
“If you’re not tired, which is fair, because you slept for, like, eight years earlier, you can just hang in the house or whatever. We gotta go to Raven Service tomorrow, and then I’m probably gonna head home.”  
“I’ll head home with you, if your place has a wagon.”  
“I’ll try and fix it up tomorrow, then, but it’s gonna take some time!”  
“I can magic it, I have a few spell slots for basic repairing shit—“ which is a lie, a big fat lie, told on Taako’s normal impulse that makes him need to be needed.  
“Yeah, that would be great! I should get you clothes, though, cuz it’s fucking cold and you don’t have a jacket or anything?” 

Which is true, Gods. Fuck this. he has to rely on these motherfuckers, these small-town assholes, which is not something that he normally enjoys doing. 

He meditates all night, and is shocked into consciousness by a tap to the shoulder, at which he jumps. Magnus jumps at the jump, says, “Shit, shit, shit, I’m sorry—“  
“It’s,” says Taako, and he pauses, “Fine. It’s fine.”  
“I’m really sorry!”  
“Chill.”  
“We, uh, we gotta go to the Raven Queen’s temple for service, I dunno if you want to, cuz I can swing back here—“  
“I’ll go,” he says, “If you fucking _insist.”_  
“I don’t. Uh, I have an extra jacket,” he says, and hands Taako a coat that’s rather large and a bit patchy, “And Mr. Waxmen has _so many_ extra scarves.”  
Taako is busy throwing his hair into a braid, it keeps his hands busy, and Magnus says something under his breath, “Ontáro na—“  
“Pardon? You speak Elvish?”  
“Ni quet-fárea,” he says, and he whispers, “It’s—I dunno, I don’t like the Waxmen folks worrying about me, so I keep most of my personal thoughts in a language they don’t speak? And, like, you clearly speak it, so, might as well brief you on some shit before—“  
“Brief me.”  
“Yeah, uh, I’m bringing you to my place, so.”  
“Oh.”

Magnus is quiet from that point on, as they join their hosts in hiking up a hill, past this section of town, into a temple, like temples he’s seen before. Spires and all that. There are a lot more obelisks here, many more paintings of birds and of the astral plane. Julia places an offering of some art that Taako doesn’t pay much attention to, starts talking to the central obelisk, saying things about prosperous life, and about a snowstorm.

She finishes what she says, and she pats her father’s back, says, “I think we’re gonna head home now.”  
“I just go outta respect for the Waxmens,” says Magnus, quietly, as they leave, “I don’t really do religion.”  
“Neither do I,” says Taako.  
“Cool.”  
“You goin’? asks Julia.  
“Yeah, I gotta shift tomorrow, though, so.”  
“Of course.”  
“I’ll be back.”  
“I’m—I’m going with him.”  
“We have a spare room,” says Magnus, “It’s fine.”  
“Is it?” asks Julia.  
“It’s fine.”  

Magnus’ house is bigger than Julia’s, but it’s one story total, and it’s entirely empty. Magnus lights a fire in a central fireplace, says, “They’re working, then,” to no one, and sits down.  
“Is this where you murder me?”  
“What? No?”  
“ _Suspicious._ ”  
“I don’t just—I don’t just murder randomass folks that get abandoned!”  
“Sure.”  
“ _Dude._ ” 

Taako’s joking, mostly, but he really does not trust the boy he’s with, at all, who’s just whittling more tiny dog figurines.

“Why do you make these?”  
“Keep my hands busy. I have trouble focusing on things, so the dogs sorta keep me grounded and help me get my shit together. I’ve made about five-hundred in the last few years.”  
“What.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Do you even have a dog?”  
He frowns, “My mom’s allergic.”  
“Aw.”

And it’s quiet, save for the fire and the whittling, and Taako doesn’t do very much at all. About an hour later, the door opens, and a man who resemble Magnus, were Magnus twice as muscular, thirty years older, and about seventy shades paler, enters, looking grim.

“You’re back,” he says.  
“Yeah, dad, I—my friend here thinks he can help me fix the wagon, and he doesn’t even need payment, just a ride to Rockport.  
“Where’s your buddy from?”  
“New Elfington,” says Taako, “I worked on the caravan, but they accidentally left me behind, so I gotta catch up.”  
“Hm,” says Magnus’ father, “And your _employer_ couldn’t take him in because…”  
“Because he’s gonna help me with the wagon and he’s allergic to sawdust.”  
“Might as well avoid you, then.”  
“Dad.”  
“You know your mother isn’t fond of… visitors.”  
“I know that you aren’t big on strangers, but my friend’s a really good guy, okay?”  
“What’s his name?”  
“Uh,” says Magnus, “Justin.”  
“Reasonable.”  
“Yessir.”

Taako shoots Magnus a look. Magnus shoots Taako a look, mouths “I’ll explain.” His father leaves the room, says nothing, and Magnus pulls Taako outside and into a little shack behind the house.

“This is the murder zone,” he says, and then, he points to something that looks like a bonfire-ready wood-pile on two wheels, “I’m joking. Here’s the wagon. The horse is with my ma.”  
“What’s your dad’s deal?”  
“Doesn’t like elves, doesn’t like strangers, doesn’t like _me_.”  
“So you brought me home.”  
“I _thought_ he’d be at work.”  
“ _All day?_ ”  
“Yeah, honestly.”  
“That’s fair.”  
“So, uh, repair magic—”  
“I was—I was lying.”  
“Are you fucking kidding me.”  
“What—what do you want me to do?”  
“To fucking learn some repair magic?”  
“You’re the carpenter boy!”  
“Why’d you lie to me?”

He sounds legitimately mad, betrayed, like he’s not used to lies. Taako almost laughs at that.

It's quiet.

“I’ll still help,” he offers halfheartedly, and Magnus has already started hammering some shit.  
“Kay,” he says, quiet, still a little bit upset, and then, “There are extra nails on that shelf, can you grab ‘em?” 

Taako has to jump up on a shitty wooden table to grab them, and he’s, luckily, pretty damn good at jumping. 

“Don’t drop ‘em!” says Magnus, whose voice, which is generally pretty damn gruff, cracks.  
“I won’t,” teases Taako, who proceeds to drop them. And fall. He catches himself, and, luckily, the nails land in a pile.  
“Well, shit,” says Magnus, and he laughs.  
“This is a fucking _travesty,_ I could have _died,_ and you, Magnus Middlename Don’t Humans Have Those Burnsides, fucking _laugh_ at me and my great _pain_ ,” and he laughs too, and they’re laughing together.  
“Sorry I got mad—“  
“Sorry that I lied,” says Taako, which is something he has never said before, at least not with any meaning behind it. 

It takes a week and a half to rebuild the wagon, with Julia’s occasional help whenever she drops by. Taako manages to avoid encounters with Magnus’ parents—he never even meets the kid’s mother. He rests in a spare room next to Magnus’, slips out during the midday to make himself lunch, and cooks dinner alongside Magnus, who comes home every night. Magnus acts as if this is strange for him. Taako doesn’t ask. They go out to the markets sometimes, buy food and necessities. Magnus eyes some bracelets in one stall but turns away, and Taako takes pity on the poor kid, and slips one of them in his pocket to give him later. 

Julia meets up with themat the markets every time they go, hands Magnus some papers, which Taako assumes are orders for wooden goods, because Julia will always say, “Lots of demand for chairs lately,” or “Can you believe how specific Vesryn is? Gods, it’s ridiculous.”  
“I don’t mind it,” Magnus will always say, and Taako will laugh at him, because he’s alarmingly okay with whatever.  

And he grows to like it, to like them. He doesn’t think he’s liked anybody in awhile.

But they fix the wagon, and Magnus manages to wrangle the horse into the shack just in time for his Candlenights break, and they set off on the three-day trip to Rockport. 

“There’s a train to Neverwinter outta there, it’s brand new,” he says.  
“You think I can afford train tickets?”  
“Well, no, but I think you got a sneakiness to you. There’s also the university, they have a transmutation school, in case you ever wanna learn actual repair magic.”

Taako laughs. 

“We have three more days till we’re there,” says Taako, “Don’t fuckin’ plan out my future yet.”  
“Nah, I’m gonna plan out your whole life right _now,”_ Magnus teases.  
“Ugh.”  
“You’re gonna be famous,” says Magnus, “I know you are, you have _personality._ ”  
“Star power,” continues Taako.  
“Like the bards in the caravans.”  
“Don’t even joke about me becoming a bard,” he says, and fake-gags.  
“Okay, like, traveling chef. Like fucking Fantasy Chopped.”  
“You’ve seen Fantasy Chopped?”  
“You haven’t?”  
“I don’t—I’m never in the same place.”  
“It’s so fuckin’ cool.”  
“I heard.”

And they sleep in this shitty, shitty wagon that they built, and Taako tries to transmute the shitty, shitty food they took along with them into something acceptable (which Magnus appreciates, somehow), and they have an actually okay time.

“It’s Candlenights,” says Magnus, on the third day, as they’re rolling into Rockport.  
“It’s Candlenights,” he agrees.  
“You wanna do something? There’s a restaurant my ma took me to one time here that has really good thirty-clove chicken.” 

And they do that, and it’s the best goddamn chicken Taako’s had in his life. Magnus pays for it with his chair-money, says “It’s cool, chairs are really in right now.”  
And Taako blurts out, “What’s the catch?”  
“What?”  
“Why are you—why have you helped me?”  
“Cuz I like you?”  
“But before you even knew me?”  
“Cuz you were cold and alone, I’m not—I’m not an asshole.”  
“I didn’t do anything to make you want to help me.”  
“You were _there_.”

It’s quiet, for a few minutes. Magnus orders dessert.

“I got you something,” says Taako, and he pushes the bracelet across the table.  
“For me?”  
“Yeah, I saw—I saw that you liked it, so I got it for you, like, as a payment for—“ 

And Magnus stands up, leans over the table, and squeezes Taako in a fucking death grip hug.  

“That is the nicest thing somebody’s _ever_ done for me—“  
“Don’t exaggerate, m’dude—“  
“I made you a dog, just for like—remembering me, I guess? It’s a whippet.”

He pulls a tiny wooden dog out of his pocket, slides it into Taako’s.

“When you’re famous,” he says, “Come back to Raven’s Roost.”

—

And he does come back, when he gets famous. Sazed insists it only be a one show visit, cuz it’s a small town, and makes sure he doesn’t blow too much advertising money on it. The town’s going through some Rough Times, lately, he hears, and no one’s really in the mood for a fancy cooking show by some out-of-towner.

It’s sold out, of course.

He makes cake. And the samplings are going well, mildly familiar faces occasionally popping up. At the end of the line, there’s a smiley couple, both looking a bit beat up, but both absolutely overjoyed to see him. 

Magnus envelops him in a hug, Julia spins him around in one, and he lets them. 

“We’re engaged,” she brags, shows him a ring on her finger. Of course they are.  
“We don’t know when the wedding’s gonna be—“  
“It’s all kinda up in the air right now.”  
“What with the… situation the town’s in. And our relation to that. Shh. Super secret shit.”  
“But you are 100% definitely invited.” 

He says thanks for the invite, gives no definitive answer because Gods know where he’ll be when, and they nod sympathetically, say, “Are you staying the night, at least?”  
“Nah, fools, I gotta show in Rockport soon.”  
“Aw, no, I wanted to catch up!”

They’ve become a unit since he’s been gonne, Magnus&Julia, Julia&Magnus. It’s sweet, he thinks. 

“I have wine in my sleep car, if you wanna open up a bottle.”  
“Hell yeah,” says Magnus, and Julia smiles.

They get drunk and they reminisce. Magnus hints at a town uprising, but doesn’t elaborate. 

“You’re— you’re, like, super good at magic now, Taak,” says Magnus.  
“Fuckin’ _incredible,”_ says Julia.  
“Don’t I know it.”

He leaves that night, a little drunk, happy to have seen them again. 

—

And then, forty people die. 

He’s two days away from where it happened, in Neverwinter, and Sazed’s abandoned him, and he doesn’t know where the fuck to go next. 

So he calls for a wagon, scrapes together all the money he can find, and says, “Take me to Raven’s Roost.”  
“No use in going there,” says a voice from the front, gruff, sad, after a pause.  
“Why not?”  
“It’s—It’s a ghost town now.”  
“What?”  
“A bunch—some parts of the town got bombed,” continues the driver, nervous in his tone, “Everyone left.”  
“When did this—“  
“Just a month ago.”  
“Oh Gods.”  
“I can take you to, uh, Rockport? But the train there’s quicker.”  
“Or?”  
“Phandolin’s an option, I guess.”  
“Nah.”  
“Well tell me,” says the driver, who turns around, “Where the fuck do you wanna go.”  
  
And then. 

And then, he’s being hugged and hugged and hugged. 

“You’re okay, then,” says Taako, eventually.  
“I guess.”  
“What about—“  
“No.”  
“Oh.”  
“Two months after we got married.”  
“Oh, Mags—“  
“I—I could’ve stopped it, Taako, I was out of town, I was at this dumb fuckin’ carpentry showcase, and.”  
He doesn't know why he says what he does, but he says it, “Dude, I killed forty people," and it's the first time he says it out loud.  
“What the _fuck?”_  
“My show, I poisoned an entire town.”  
“Why are you telling me this?”  
“Distract you.”  
“Okay.”  
“Alright.”

They're quiet after that, for a moment.

"Fuckin' onward," says Taako.  
  
—

Six years is the longest he’s ever spent with another living being. Which is ridiculous. They take on some adventuring jobs, don’t accomplish very much, but manage to make a solid living off of it. They go from town to town, doing odd jobs, ignoring whatever’s happened, not acknowledging anything bad.

It’s an alright way to live.

There’s a fucking dwarf following them, he realizes, one day, in Neverwinter. 

“Sirs—“ says the dwarf, running up to them, “Do you wanna talk about _Pan?”_  
“No thank you," says Magnus.  
“Mister, I beg you—“ this fucker's smizing and blocking Taako's path now, so.  
“No interest, hombre.”  
"Okay, _asshole_ ," says the dwarf, no longer even attempting to be charismatic. Which is good, it doesn't suit him, "I'm just tryin' to--"

And so on. 

They see him again on Craig’s List, and then they do talk about Pan, and luckily, he has a connection to the guy who’s gonna pay them next.

He’s alright company, anyway.

And their new employer, well, he says this is the last job they’ll ever have to take, so if everything goes well, they won’t be stuck with him for very long.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblo @yahooanswer. you're great.
> 
> title is from into the woods. i wrote this before my wife lup existed. i would never exclude her from anything on purpose, i swear.


End file.
